When he had calmed, when his head finally swam clear of terror, he looked back at the water, saw the elm branch that had caught at him, and realized he’d probably been less than two feet under water. It had been so dark that he had felt he was much deeper.
He lay back on the bank, closed his eyes, tried to gather his strength. His teeth chattered from cold. It was some time before he could bring himself to enter the water again, and when he did, it was on the opposite side of the boat from the tree limb. He ventured carefully, his fingers edging along the bows of the boat an inch at a time. He took a series of breaths, closed his eyes, and pulled himself under. On the third swipe of his arm Jason found the rope. He followed it to the shackle, felt for the toggle that would release it. He found the toggle, tried to push it open with his thumb, rattled the shackle back and forth. It wouldn’t come.
He was out of air. He pushed back from the boat and kicked to the surface, then treaded water while he caught his breath. Then he dove again.
He found the shackle more quickly this time, thumbed it open, tried to pull it from the metal eye at the boat’s bow. The line had too much tension, he realized, for him to get the inch or so of slack needed to slip the shackle from the eye. So he reached to the bow, gripped the edge, and put his weight on it, made the bow bob in the water.
He reached out for the line again, and that’s when he grabbed the dead man.
It felt wrong. Not the slick texture of the nylon line, but something soft and yielding and cold. He felt along it, trying to puzzle out what it was, and then he felt the cold fingers brushing light as gossamer against his wrist and he screamed.
He lunged to the surface in a boil of white foam. Water seared his throat. He clawed his way to the bank and lay retching. River water drooled from his mouth and nose.
Mr. Regan, he realized, had died with his beloved boat. Caught in the rope, apparently, and drowned. Jason shivered on the bank and gasped for air. He sat up, spat out river water, and stared in at the boat in horror. He thought of old Mr. Regan lying under the water waiting for him, arms reaching out, eyes staring into the darkness, white hair floating. He thought of the distant flame-scorched rubbish on the horizon, and his mother clinging to it, clinging to life in the cold river water. Without thought he flung himself into the river. He swam to the bow of the boat, put his weight on it, snatched for the mooring line, found it on the first grab. He felt slack on the line, and quickly he snapped off the shackle and let it fall.
The bow rose to the surface and brought Jason with it. He turned and swam straight to the mound, because he didn’t want to see if Mr. Regan bobbed to the surface behind him.
He climbed onto the mound and caught his breath, and only then did he dare to look behind. No dead men floated in the water. Relief flooded his heart. He was going to rescue his mother, sail them back to California on the Retired and Gone Fishin’.
It was getting very dark. The sun must have set. Jason looked northward and saw that the fires of Cabells Mound had largely died down. He shuddered with a sudden chill and decided it was time to get his boat rightside-up.
He climbed to the stern, got a grip on the underside, and heaved. There was a splash, a rain of water from the bow, and the boat moved. Jason ducked, got his feet and body beneath the boat, and straightened, giving a shout as the boat moved, rolling away from him.
With a great splash, Retired and Gone Fishin’ landed on its keel. Jason’s heart leaped. He never could have turned the boat over on dry land. But the water had supported the boat’s weight, and taken most of his burden from him.
The bass boat had clearly seen better days. It had platforms fore and aft, so that fishermen could stand and cast. There had been a padded swivel chair on each platform, but these had been torn away. Right amidships there was a small cockpit, with two forward-facing seats and a small jumpseat between them. The small windscreen in front of the driver’s seat had been torn away, and the fore part was half-flooded with water.
Jason got into the boat, groped in the darkness for any equipment.
Nothing.
No engine, no paddles, no life vests, no fishing poles. No water, no food, no fuel. No way to bail out the water that filled the bottom of the boat. A steering wheel that wasn’t hooked up to anything, a throttle that flopped uselessly back and forth like a screen door in the wind.
He wondered how he was going to get to the wreckage of his home. That cotton field might be fifty miles wide for all this boat was going to help him.
Pole along, he supposed. Or use a stick as a paddle. Or hang his feet off the back of the boat and kick. Still, Jason could see no point in staying on the mound. It wasn’t as if some rescue craft was going to parachute him an emergency outboard motor. If he stayed on the mound, who knew how long it would take for people to find him? The river would bring him to other people sooner or later. He groped around on the flank of the mound for sticks suitable for paddles, and found several leafy branches that would do as well as anything else he was likely to find. He threw the branches into the boat, put his hands on the stern counter, and prepared to push off. Something solid banged him on the forehead.
He swiped at it and felt the hard plastic casing of his new telescope. He took the scope from where he’d hung it and, a bit self-consciously, hung it over his shoulder. Suddenly he felt like laughing. He looked down at the boat and imagined a crew of sailors waiting for his orders.
“We’ve got a telescope, men!” he said. “We’re ready for sea now!” And with a laugh, he pushed the boat off from the mound and jumped into the stern as it surged away. The river was sluggish and still. Retired and Gone Fishin’ turned slow circles as Jason fumbled his way over the boat. He found a locker that was reasonably dry, and put the telescope in it. The dying fires of Cabells Mound reflected red off the water.
He sat on the edge of the boat and tried paddling with one of the branches, but that only turned the boat in circles, and the effort was exhausting. The boat was too wide for him to paddle on both sides to keep it straight, not unless he kept jumping from one side to the other, and that seemed useless. Jason tried hanging over the end of the boat and swishing the branch back and forth, hoping to propel himself along by lashing his tail like a sperm, but when he tried it nothing seemed to happen. He looked at the bulk of the mound on his left, and it seemed farther away. He was slowly drifting south with the river, not north as he wished.
He threw the branch into the boat in disgust and heard it land in the water that splashed ankle-deep in the bottom. He was going to have to try kicking the boat northward.
He took off his sneakers and socks, then carefully lowered himself off the back of the boat. A shiver ran through him at the water’s chill. He hung onto the metal plate to which the outboard was usually bolted, and he began to kick. Water splashed as his heels broke the surface.
He kicked steadily for a few minutes, but from behind the boat he couldn’t tell if he was on the right course, so he stopped kicking and pulled his head above the gunwale to take a bearing on the red glow of Cabells Mound. He seemed to be aimed more or less in the right direction, so he dropped into the water once more and began to kick.
That was the way it went for a long time. Kick for several minutes, take a bearing while he panted for breath, kick some more. The glow seemed to be getting a little nearer.